Blogs

Let me tell you a story. It is old and has been retold many times.

Stephen and Ben have what I think is a fairly typical father/son working relationship; they usually work very well together but occasionally there is a little wobble.

Silly season is upon us and we are right in the thick of it.

It is a sad fact that some of the most successful, life-saving agricultural advances were bitterly opposed by environmental groups when they were first created. 

In the summer of 2003, as I concluded my studies at Swansea University, little did I imagine that almost two decades later the work of one of the Welsh poets we studied would again haunt with a renewed sense of poignancy.

We had a great day at Usk show. The sun shone and the hospitality stands were brimming with thirsty farmers grateful for the alcoholic beverages offered to them.

September rolls on with the local area mostly caught up now. Fields of grain, straw and silage have led to some very full barns locally.

So after the longest of waits harvest 2021 is nearly complete here in the soggy North West and with it came its many stresses. However, I find none as stressful as trying to move the combine down the road.

It is that time of year again when the weather person on TV talks about increasingly autumnal conditions and you know summer is nearly over. That said, it has been a lovely spell, allowing us to get second cut silage and arable silage cut and baled with little stress.

As a farmer who took part in the UK Government’s genetically modified (GM) crop farm-scale evaluation trials 20 years ago, and as a passionate advocate of the importance of genetic innovation to healthier and more sustainable food production, I read your article ‘The term ‘gene editing’ is confusing consumers’ (FG, July 26) with an uneasy sense of deja vu and a concern that we must learn from past mistakes.